Edmund Wilson’s America PDF
Preview Edmund Wilson’s America
EDMUND WILSON'S AMERICA EDMUND WILSON'S AMERICA GEORGE H. DOUGLAS THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1983 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0024 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Douglas, George H., 1934- Edmund Wilson's America. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Wilson, Edmund, 1895-1972—Knowledge—United States. 2. Criticism—United States—History—20th century. 3. United States—Civilization. I. Title. PS3545.I6245Z595 1983 818'.5209 83-19696 ISBN 0-8131-1494-2 Contents Introduction vii 1. The Man and His World 1 2. The New Wilderness 22 3. Women of the Twenties 45 4. The Crumbling Moral Order 72 5. Two Ailing Democracies 94 6. Back to the Native Ground 105 7. The World of Hecate County 123 8. Our National Wound 147 9. The Decadence of the Democratic State 166 10. The Democratic Man of Letters 195 11. Upstate 208 Epilogue 221 Chronology 225 The Books of Edmund Wilson: A Checklist 227 Bibliographical Essay 230 Index 244 Photographs follow page 122 Introduction This book is a study of Edmund Wilson's views about American life. It is primarily a work of exposition, but I have sought, through analy- sis and interpretation, to make intelligible a long and varied profes- sional career, to synthesize Wilson's moods and ideas over several generations. But why such a work at all? Wilson has spoken eloquently for himself, and there have already been several biographical and gen- eral studies of his work. My assumption is that the breadth and diver- sity of Wilson's work has made it difficult to obtain a sharp focus on some of the most powerful and enlightening strains of his thought. As the great man of letters of our time (some might say our only man of letters), Wilson was a generalist, an eccentric, and an individualist. He read the books he wanted to read and wrote essays on those that struck his fancy. He wrote substantially on topics as diverse as the Dead Sea Scrolls, sleight-of-hand magic, Canadian politics, Hungar- ian verbs, Russian poetry, the history of upstate New York, and the literature of the Civil War. Throughout his career he wrote not only literary criticism but also intellectual history, political analysis, travel books, novels, poems, and plays. The result of this splendid diversity has been that Wilson is somewhat elusive. Most frequently he has been the object of study by literary scholars, and a look at the many articles written about him will show that they are devoted almost exclusively to Wilson's literary ideas and opinions, although a fair number have also been concerned with Wilson as a social and politi- cal thinker and reformer. Of course these areas do present rich materials for study and investigation, and I have not neglected them. I have tried, however, to narrow the scope of my study so as to locate one major area of Wilson's work within a coherent intellectual frame- viii INTRODUCTION work. I do this because I believe that Wilson's views about American civilization are worth preserving—indeed, they are among the most challenging and rewarding of the twentieth century. As a result, some readers may find scant consideration being given to what may be their favorites among Wilson's books. I have done very little with Axel's Castle, long considered Wilson's master- piece of literary criticism. I have done nothing with The Scrolls from the Dead Sea, a superlative scholarly treatment of the subject. I have discussed To the Finland Station, not, however, for its detailed his- tory of the intellectual background of European socialism but be- cause it reveals a dimension of Wilson's heroic response to the economic upheavals of the 1930s and the seeming vulnerability of American values and traditions at that time. On the other hand, as a part of my historical and cultural approach, I have given consider- able space to works like Apologies to the Iroquois, which would merit only marginal treatment in a study of Wilson's literary ideas. In addition, I have relied more heavily than earlier writers on Wilson's diaries, letters, and personal essays in an effort to render the texture and intimate feeling of his response to the American scene. Wilson is a writer who uniquely combines intellectual analysis and imagina- tive synthesis, and to comprehend his work in all its dimensions one must enter freely into his various moods and attitudes. This book is arranged roughly in a chronological sequence. But only roughly. There is advantage in treating Wilson, as I have done, decade by decade, so as to uncover the shifting values and viewpoints that controlled his work during different periods. But it is also impor- tant to do as much as possible to show the unity of Wilson's thought over time. I have a chapter, placed near the end, that reflects Wil- son's views about the condition of scholarship in America. But here I have referred to several essays on the subject that Wilson wrote over a period of forty years. Wilson's well-known attack on certain forms of academic scholarship, which brought him some unpleasant notoriety in the late 1960s, is clearly foreshadowed in numerous essays that he wrote in the 1940s and before. His ideals of scholarship were also clearly revealed in his beautiful essay on John Jay Chap- man, first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1937. Still, it seemed sensible to place a discussion of Wilson's ideals of scholarship in the decade of the 1960s, at which he was stirring up controversy on the subject of institutionalized scholarship. There is a great deal in this book about Wilson's views on politics and on the strengths and weaknesses of American democracy. So much, in fact, that it would not be possible to gather it all in one
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